


Now You Know

by katikat



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Obsession, Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 07:48:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12552664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katikat/pseuds/katikat
Summary: After they return from Nigeria, Mac gets a fever. And that’s how it starts. Or, angst, murder, mayhem - and Murdoc being his crazy self. Told from Matty Webber’s POV. (Unbeta'd)





	Now You Know

After they return from Nigeria, Mac gets a fever. And that’s how it starts.

Once the doctors rule out things like Ebola, malaria and similar diseases, they deem the fever harmless, just the symptom of a common flu or exhaustion. Nothing dangerous about it. Still, it makes Mac cranky, as his friends find out, because he feels tired and his head hurts and he aches all over. Matty orders him to take a Tylenol and sleep it off, the simplest of remedies sometimes works best.

It doesn’t in this case, as it turns out.

Several days later, Bozer finds Mac passed out in the shower and before the ambulance arrives, Mac starts seizing, scaring the crap out of an already rattled Bozer. And he doesn’t wake up again, not in the ambulance, not at the hospital. When his temperature shoots through the roof and continues climbing, his doctors come to the conclusion that Mac’s fever is not a flu symptom. Geniuses, every one of them.

Now they’re standing in the hospital hallway - Jack, Bozer, Riley, Cage and Matty - and they’re looking through the window into Mac’s hospital room, watching as doctors and nurses rush around, trying to cool down Mac’s still rising temperature.

“I don’t get it,” Jack says in a low, desperate voice. He leans against the window frame and lets his head hang for a moment, before looking up again. He stares at Mac. “When we came back from Nigeria and he got sick, doctors put him through a whole battery of tests - I know because I was there, keeping him company, and I had to listen to him complain about it for hours! And they found bupkis, a whole lot of nothing. This” –he points through the window– “is not nothing!”

Before anyone can respond - not that they would know how - Matty’s phone rings. Annoyed, she pulls it out of her pocket and snaps “What!” into the receiver.

“Matilda! Is that a way to answer a phone? Tsk tsk,” comes the snide response from the other end of the line.

Her eyes widen, then narrow again. “Murdoc! I should’ve known!” she snaps and puts him on loudspeaker so that everyone can listen in. And they do, gathering around anxiously.

“How is our boy wonder, if I may ask? Has he started seizing yet? I bet he did! It’s such a shame I missed that, it must’ve been quite a sight,” Murdoc says in a wistful voice.

Jack’s face flushes with fury and he opens his mouth to snap something, but Matty raises her finger sharply to stop him. He subsides but he balls his hands into fists so tightly that his knuckles turn white.

“What did you do to MacGyver?” Matty asks. She sounds composed but her eyes are blazing. Her ability to keep her emotions under control in the most dire of circumstances is why she’s being paid the big bucks.

“Oh, you know. A little bit of this, a little bit of that,” Murdoc replies airily. “Though I have to give myself a pat on the shoulder, Matilda, because it was quite an ingenious plan.”

“Then why don’t you tell us about it, you genius?” Matty prods him.

Murdoc tsks again. “I can hear the sarcasm in your voice but I’m sure that even you will appreciate this: a two-component poison, my dear. The first part was in the substance I drugged Mac with a few weeks ago. The other… well, all I had to do was wait for our fearless hero to go south and get something as innocuous as a vaccine. Separately, those to components do nothing. Together?” He imitates the sound of an explosion.

Looking from one of his people to another and finally settling on Jack, forcing him to keep quiet with the strength of her look alone, Matty asks, “And what do you want, Murdoc?”

Suddenly, all the amusement disappears from Murdoc’s voice, it’s as if a switch was flipped and it’s quite terrifying. “It’s very easy, Matilda. I want my son. Cassian for the antidote. And before you start yammering about how you can’t put a child in danger or some other nonsense, think it through: whose safety is more important to you, director, some brat’s you don’t even know - or your company’s most important asset?”

Matty has to grit her teeth to keep from snapping at the psycho. She swallows her anger and tells him reasonably, “Well, now that I know that Mac’s been poisoned, what’s stopping my people from finding out what with and saving him on their own?”

And the amusement’s back. “Oh, nothing, nothing at all. I’m sure your lab will figure it out eventually, the Phoenix Foundation employs only the best of the best, after all. But!” He pauses for effect. “Will they figure it out in time? Before fever turns MacGyver’s brain into mush? I bet it’s already happening, right now. And the longer you wait with your decision to give me what I want, the higher the risk that he’ll suffer a severe brain damage. Just think about it, all that knowledge, all that intelligence… lost.”

This time, Jack won’t be stopped. “I’ll kill you for this, Murdoc. You hear me? I’ll find you and I will kill you!”

There’s a dark chuckle. “Oh, Jack. So good to know you’re listening in. I think you actually believe you can do that! I understand now why Mac keeps you around. You’re quite funny!”

Then, Murdoc’s humor disappears again, replaced with a bone-deep chill. “I’ll call in one hour, Matilda, and give you instruction where to bring my son. Oh, and do watch over our boy genius for me, will you? I want him to live and suffer for a while yet, you know?”

And then he hangs up.

They all start talking at once, but once again, Matty raises a finger to shut them up. Then she walks over to the door to Mac’s hospital room, opens it and beckons one of the doctors out into the hallway to tell him what she just found out.

“Is it possible?” Matty asks anxiously when she finishes.

Doctor Wheeler rubs his chin. “Well, in theory, sure but–”

She interrupts him, “Then act as if it did happen and focus on that. Our man told me that there is a good chance we could find the antidote ourselves, just not fast enough.”

She pauses and looks inside the room where Mac’s lying unconscious, surrounded by beeping and blinking machines. He doesn’t look good at all. “How long does he have?”

Sighing, the doctor looks at Mac, too. “Not long. At this rate, if his fever continues climbing…” He shakes his head. “If you really think he was poisoned, we’ll start working on it immediately. But since we know nothing about the poison, it might take days, even longer for us to find the antidote.” He falls silent, then he looks down at her. “He does not have days.”

Matty tightens her jaw. “I understand. Start working on it anyway. We’ll try to get the antidote from the source.”

“What will we do?” Bozer asks, wringing his hands, when Matty comes back.

“We can’t just hand Murdoc his son over,” Riley says. “Mac would be the first to insist on that!”

“But we have to do something!” Jack protests, loudly, angrily.

“Maybe we could draw Murdoc out and force him to give up the antidote?” Cage suggests.

Jack turns to her angrily. “Haven’t you been paying attention? Murdoc can’t be forced. He’s crazy! And even if - if! - we gave him the boy and he handed over the cure, he might double-cross us and let Mac’s brain get fried like an egg just for the hell of it!”

They start arguing again, snapping at each other, their anxiety and fear for Mac getting the better of them, until Matty yells at them to shut up or else!

“You’re right, Jack,” she tells him reasonably. “Murdoc’s crazy, unpredictable, and I doubt very much we can pressure him into anything, true. That said” –she sighs– “we’ll have to try anyway, I’m afraid, because I don’t see any other option. We’ll agree on cooperating - and we’ll set up a trap and capture the psycho. And we’ll pray that either our people find the antidote in the meantime or we will figure out a way to make him give it up!”

They all look at each other grimly, unhappily. They don’t like it. They don’t like it all. There are too many options, too many variables, too many uncertainties. They’re about to play with a madman for stakes that are too high for anyone to be comfortable with.

In his hospital room, Mac starts seizing again. They’re running out of time.

* * *

An hour later, Murdoc calls them with instructions where to meet him. He gives them an hour to get there or the deal’s off. Just the ride will take them fifty minutes at least! Murdoc doesn’t care, take it or leave it. And he hangs up again. The bastard!

And so they decide to follow the plan, however unhappy they are with it, they don’t have anything better, no tricks left up their sleeve. They double Cassian’s security detail, they post guards at Mac’s room and leave Bozer there to watch over him. Riley they drop off at the headquarters from where she’ll follow them over satellite and cameras all over the city. And then they send a SWAT team ahead to take positions - “Stealthily, gentlemen! Mac’s life depends on this!” - while Jack, Cage and Matty go in… with Matty as the decoy.

“This is so humiliating,” Matty grumbles, pulling at her hoodie, while they sit in their car, parked inside the abandoned warehouse were they’re meant to meet Murdoc.

Jack looks in the rearview mirror. “I’m sorry, Matty, but neither of us two is small enough to pose as a kid.”

“It’s still humiliating!” she reiterates, squirming a little in the backseat.

Cage smiles, scanning their surroundings. “It was your idea,” she reminds their boss.

“I’m aware!” Matty snaps. “And if any one of you ever even breathes about this, I’ll have your liver for lunch!”

She expects Jack to protest but instead, he’s quiet for a moment and then, in a voice that’s entirely too serious, he whispers, “Yeah, well. If this goes well, if we actually get Mac the help he needs, then I’ll swear I’ll never talk about it to anyone.”

Matty’s face softens and she leans forward to squeeze his shoulder lightly. “It’ll be okay.”

“I hope so, Matty,” Jack says, patting her hand. “I really hope so.”

But Murdoc doesn’t show. They wait ten minutes, fifteen, half an hour - and nothing. And then, just about the time they start getting really anxious, Matty’s phone rings. They all stare at it for a heartbeat or two, apprehensive, then Matty picks up.

“Yes?” she says.

“You know, Matilda, I’m wounded,” Murdoc’s voice echoes through the loudspeaker. “We’ve known each other for months now - and you still take me for a fool.”

Matty glances from Jack to Cage. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Hm, really? So, you did bring Cassian with you to our private little rendezvous?” Murdoc asks in a pensive voice.

“Yes,” Matty confirms. “I sent Cage and Jack with him, they should be there by now.”

“That’s funny, because I’m looking at him right now and he’s definitely not in the warehouse where your people should be,” Murdoc points out sharply.

They all freeze and their eyes, trained on the phone in her hand, widen.

“I don’t–” Matty starts saying.

“The people you sent to him for extra protection? They were really easy to follow. Where did you even find them? Spies-R-Us? Oh, doesn’t matter now, they’re dead anyway,” Murdoc says airily.

Matty pauses for a moment to gather herself. “You’re lying,” she says in the end, unwilling to give away anything just in case he’s playing them.

“Am I?” Murdoc says - and he proceeds to give her an address: the address of the safehouse where they’ve been hiding little Cassian for weeks now. Christ…

Then, Murdoc continues in a voice that’s as hard as stone, “The deal’s off. Whatever happens to MacGyver now, is on you, Matilda. On you. And, by the way,” he adds matter-of-factly, “I would get out of there, if I were you. You made me very angry. And when I get angry, I get even.”

Eyes snapping up, Matty yells, “Go, Jack! Go, go, go!” and she braces herself against the front seat with her feet.

They barely make it out before the warehouse explodes, flipping their car over and sending it rolling.

* * *

An hour, that’s how long it takes them to escape from the clutches of the local police and every other agency and service that one could even think of - Matty thinks she might’ve even seen the IRS guy lurking in the bushes - but enough is enough!

“Hey, Detective Deaf!” Matty snaps at the policeman who just asked them again to tell him what happened here, for the fourth time already! “We’re done here. We’ll answer all your question tomorrow. Right now, we have a psychopath on the loose, possibly a child missing - and one of my operatives is actually dying in the hospital while we yammer here! So, excuse me if I don’t really care about a pile of rubble on your home turf!”

The detective sputters and is about to object, but Matty pins him in place with her look. “Have your lieutenant call me - tomorrow! Now get out of my way or you’ll be singing soprano for the next decade!”

Under any other circumstances, Jack and Cage would laugh at the way the six foot plus guy built like a brick house scampers out of Matty’s way when she gets rolling. Under any other circumstances. But not now, not today. They’re just happy to get out of there.

They confiscate one of their SWAT team’s cars, leaving them to deal with the mess, and head for the safehouse where Murdoc’s son, Cassian, has been kept.

Riley tells them she informed Bozer about what happened - “He’s getting worse, Jack, I’m sorry,” she tells Jack when he asks about Mac in a thick, quiet voice - but she can’t raise Cassian’s protection detail, not on their coms or on their cellphones.

When they arrive at the house, they find out why: they’re dead, all four of their people, three women and one man, shot in the back of their heads, execution style. And Cassian’s gone. Matty tells Riley to send forensics in while Jack and Cage search the house, but it’s all in vain. There’s nothing left, no clues that would lead them to Cassian’s - and Murdoc’s - whereabouts.

And then, all of a sudden, Riley says urgently, “Matty, I can’t raise Bozer anymore! I tried both him and our people, but nobody’s responding, nobody’s picking up their phones, even though GPS is telling me that they’re all still at the hospital!”

Matty curses a blue streak. She feels like a puppet whose strings are being pulled. It seems that they’re doing exactly what Murdoc wants them to do, playing right into his hands!

She considers involving hospital security, sending them to check on Mac and her people - but staring down at her dead agents, she decides against it. The last thing they need are civilians caught in the crossfire.

“Matty?” Jack asks. Both he and Cage are standing in the doorway of the large living room, looking at her with deep apprehension.

“We need to go, now!” Matty tells them and she marches out of the main door, leaving her dead agents lying on the floor in pools of congealing blood. Her throat’s thick and her eyes burn a little, but most of all, her heart hammers with rage. Murdoc will pay for this!

* * *

At the hospital, everything goes from bad to worse to absolute disaster: their agents are dead, their bodies hidden in the bathroom in Mac’s room, Bozer’s gone and Mac… Mac, too. And Matty’s starting to get really tired of playing catch-up with a madman.

“Where is MacGyver?” she snaps at the first nurse she sees walking by while Cage’s checking out their dead agents and Jack’s leaning against one of the two windows in the room, taking deep, deep breaths, trying to calm down - and failing.

The woman startles so hard she almost drops her files. “Who–? The patient in this room?” She points at Mac’s room. “Doctor Wheeler signed him out.”

“He did what?” Matty barks out and takes an aggressive step forward.

The nurse looks around anxiously. “Well, one of your people came in with all the proper paperwork. Doctor Wheeler refused at first but” –she shrugs– “I guess he was afraid your company might sue or something? And since the paperwork was in order–”

“When did they leave? Where did they go?” Matty keeps asking in the same furious voice.

“Half an hour ago? Maybe?” the nurse replies meekly. “I don’t know where they went but they took one of our ambulances?”

Matty grits her teeth and lets the nurse go. Then she contacts Riley, ordering her to track down all the ambulances via their GPS or whatever damn system this incompetent hospital’s using.

It takes Riley fifteen minutes. Fifteen endless minutes during which they call the cops and a real havoc erupts when the staff realizes that a multiple murder actually took place in their hospital. But they do get the location of the one ambulance that’s not responding, and that’s the most important thing right now - Matty needs to think of the people she can still save! She sends Jack and Cage to check it out because someone needs to stay there, in the hospital, and deal with this mess on top of all the others. Damn it!

* * *

It’s another twenty minutes before her phone rings. It’s Jack.

“Tell me some good news, Jack!” Matty orders. She really needs to hear some good news right now.

There’s a pause. “Bozer’s alive,” he tells her in a dull voice. It’s not that Jack’s unhappy about Bozer’s survival, it’s what follows that’s crushing him. “But the ambulance crew is dead, just like Doctor Wheeler. And Mac’s… Mac’s not here, Matty. He took him.”

She squeezes her eyes shut. More bodies, more innocents dead because she made a judgment call. And though she doesn’t know what she could’ve done differently to prevent this, it’s still all on her, just like Murdoc said, Mac’s fate, all of this…

“Why did Murdoc let Bozer live?” she asks a little hoarsely.

“He was told to give us a message.”

“What message?”

“Hold on,” Jack tells her quietly and apparently hands to phone over to Bozer.

“Matty?” Bozer whispers. He sounds like he’s been crying.

Matty doesn’t blame him. She feels like crying herself. “Hey, Bozer, are you alright?” she asks him gently.

“He shot them, Matty,” Bozer replies still very quietly as if afraid he might be overheard. “He killed the EMTs and then Doctor Wheeler, too! He-he threatened Doctor Wheeler’s son, that’s why the doc went along with the whole thing, with signing Mac out and-and everything else. It wasn’t his fault!”

It seems important to him that Matty understands it and she assures him that she does, that she doesn’t blame the doctor for anything.

Bozer pauses for a moment, gathering himself, before he continues, “He let me go because he wanted me to tell you why he was taking Mac. He-he said that you made him angry - you, Jack and Cage, but mainly you because you thought him stupid. He wanted to prove to you that he’s not. And… punish you, us - all of us - for taking his son away from him, by taking Mac away from us.” He swallows loudly. “He took him, Matty. He just took him.”

In the background, Matty hears Jack slam the ambulance door shut with all his strength, using all his rage. She knows very well how he feels.

* * *

Three days later, they still don’t know anything. The trail has gone cold. They did everything, checked everything they could, from traffic cams to satellite images. Nothing. And considering the state Mac was in when they last saw him, they’re slowly starting to lose hope.

“If Murdoc didn’t give him the antidote by now, if he didn’t–” Jack’s voice fails him and he turns away, towards the windows in the conference room; outside, it’s bright and sunny. “He might be dead already. Mac might be gone and we might not never even find out if the psycho decides to keep it to himself, what he did with Mac.”

They all glance at him and then away again because they know he’s right. It’s now all up to Murdoc. And it’s killing them, this frustrating helplessness.

Then the phone rings, Matty’s phone. And she knows.

“Yes?” she asks, picking up. And hearing the voice at the other end, she puts the caller on loudspeaker.

“… Matilda! So nice to hear your voice again.” Murdoc. And his voice’s dripping with glee. The bastard.

“Where’s Mac?” Matty snaps at him immediately, motioning to Riley to track the call. They do it every time, try to catch Murdoc unaware, but it never works out. That doesn’t mean they should stop trying.

“Ah, ah, ah!” Murdoc clucks his tongue. “First thing first - are you ready to apologize yet?”

Is the guy absolutely serious? The audacity!

“Apologize?” Matty barks out, finally losing her temper; it’s been a trying few days. “Are you kid–”

“We apologize,” Jack interrupts her, jumping in. She shoots him a shocked, furious look, but he doesn’t pay her any mind, his eyes are on the phone in her hand. “We apologize, Murdoc, alright?”

There’s a pause at the other end. “Well… I wanted an apology from Matilda, but” –he grins, they can hear it in the tone of his voice– “somehow, hearing it from you is even sweeter, Jack. You must love our boy wonder very much - and you must be truly desperate.”

Jack grits his teeth and keeps quiet, letting Murdoc talk.

Another pause. Then, “Say please, Jack.”

Matty watches as Jack’s jaw tightens and his face flushes angrily. But then, suddenly,  all the fight goes out of him and he replies softly, “Please, Murdoc. Please, give him back.”

There’s a cackle on the line. “Finally!” Murdoc yells, his tone as deranged as they’ve ever heard it. “Finally you know how I felt when you took my son away from me! How do you like it, huh? How do you like it, Jack?”

When Murdoc falls silent, nothing but heavy breathing can be heard over the phone. Nobody speaks, everyone’s waiting for what Murdoc’s next step.

Then Riley’s eyes widen and she waves a hand sharply to get everyone’s attention, mouthing, “Got him!”

But before they can rejoice, thinking that they finally outsmarted him, Murdoc continues, his voice calm and under control again, doing another one of his terrifying personality switches, “Since you said ‘please’ so nicely, Jack - Miss Davis, did you finally manage to track my phone or will I actually have to give you the address?”

“We… we got it,” Riley answers him haltingly.

“Good. Now off you go,” Murdoc tells them, adding, “But you’re getting him back only because I allowed it. Me! I could’ve dropped him on your doorstep with a broken neck! I could’ve let him burn out… I could’ve never told you where he was! But I decided to let you have him. Never forget that!”

And with that he hangs up.

* * *

They find Mac in a cheap, nondescript house in the suburbs where every unit is a clone of its neighbours, where nothing and nobody stands out. If Murdoc hadn’t pointed them in this direction, they would’ve never even looked here.

The house’s empty, every room except for the one that’s set up like a hospital room, with all the necessary machines, beeping and blinking, and a bed. And in it - Mac. Pale and thin, but feverless and… alive!

Matty stands in the doorway, watching with a thick throat and burning eyes, as Jack returns his gun to its holster and leans over the bed, touching Mac’s arm with one hand and stroking his hair with the other. And when Mac slowly opens his eyes and croaks out Jack’s name, Jack nods, crying - actually crying! - and whispers back, “Hey. How do you feel, son?”

And when Mac coughs a little and grumbles, “Lousy…” - they all laugh.

* * *

They’re back at the hospital - no, they wouldn’t let Mac go home, that was absolutely out of the question, considering that only a few days before, he was on the verge of dying! - Mac’s sitting up in his hospital bed, Jack’s sprawled in the chair next to it and the rest of them is standing around, relaxed for the first time in almost a week.

Jack shakes his head. “I just don’t get it. Why did he give you the antidote? Not that I’m complaining, mind you,” he rushes to add, “I just don’t get it. It was him who poisoned you in the first place and we didn’t give him what he wanted, we tried to trick him.”

Mac sighs and rubs his forehead. “Before he left, he told me that he wanted me to be of a ‘sound mind’ when he killed me. Apparently, watching me turn into a vegetable was not ‘fun’ or ‘challenging enough’ or something.”

Bozer shudders dramatically. “What a creep!”

“I’m just sorry that we lost Cassian,” Riley comments seriously. “I’m afraid of what he could do the boy.”

But Mac shakes his head. “I don’t think he’ll hurt his son. If there’s anyone Murdoc might come even close to loving, it’s Cassian.”

“Well,” Matty says, “I’m sorry if I don’t take your word for it. I let all the other agencies know about what happened and they’ll help us search for him. I’m not giving up on that child!”

They all fall silent for a moment, lost in their own thoughts.

Then Matty claps her hands sharply and says, “We should let you rest, Mac. I doubled your security detail - that’s non-negotiable, you won’t get rid of them until you’re able to walk out of here under your own power, you limp noodle!” she snaps, glaring at him, when he opens his mouth to protest.

They all stifle a laugh and file out of the room - all of them but Jack, who makes himself even more comfortable in the chair by Mac’s bed. Matty stops in the doorway and looks back for a moment.

“You should go home, Jack,” Mac tells him reasonably.

“Uh, uh, nope, not gonna happen, forget about it!” Jack refuses, shaking his head adamantly. “You’re stuck with me, boy. I’m not letting you out of my sight for the foreseeable future!”

Mac rolls his eyes, enough though he looks a little touched, too. “Jack–”

“Did that fever somehow fry your hearing?” Jack cuts him off. “I’m not going anywhere, deal with it!”

Mac glares at him for a moment, their wills clashing - but then he gives up and smiles a little, sliding down the pillows and burrowing under his blanket. “Alright,” he agrees.

“Alright,” Jack says, nodding firmly, and crosses his arms on his chest.

“Thanks,” Mac whispers, his eyes sliding shut.

“You’re welcome,” Jack replies.

Smiling, Matty walks out and closes the door.


End file.
